This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I said two months ago I would reply to a comment about this study on the mental health effects of gender transition. I have only now managed to find the time, so I'm going to post my reply as a top-level comment lest it get buried. You can find the previous discussion here.
To be honest, some of the statistical manipulation seems dubious, but that's above my pay grade, so I'm going to assume the study was conducted in good faith with no shenanigans.
In short, the study finds that, contrary to assumptions that transitioning should improve mental health, the share of people needing mental health treatment rises drastically after transition. Anti-trans people conclude that this means transition actually worsens mental health, and, hence, people should not be allowed to transition.
There's some nitpicking to be done here, for example, maybe the patients already needed mental health treatment and just found out they needed it at the same time as they found out they're transgender, or that just seeing a mental health professional regularly doesn't necessarily mean that your mental health is worse than it used to be.
But my fundamental objection is to the conclusion that no one should be allowed to transition. Suppose the anti-trans side is completely correct on the facts, that transitioning did, in fact, directly worsen the mental health of many or even most patients. There are still some patients who are better off. There are countless anecdotal reports online of people who are happier after transitioning. The most you can conclude is that the criteria for who should transition need to be changed. (If I'm interpreting the data right, the likelihood of needing mental health treatment after transitioning was higher in those born later, consistent with the rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)/social contagion hypothesis.) But if you care about people's happiness, some people should still be supported in transitioning.
Obviously if you believe all trans people are delusional and object to transition and treating people as their stated gender regardless of the effect on their mental health, this does not apply to you. But in that case the study isn't an argument you can use.
Speaking of ROGD, its rhetorical use by anti-trans people is a peculiar example of a self-contradictory motte-and-bailey: usually the bailey is a stronger version of the motte, and thus necessarily consistent with it, but here the bailey ("all trans people are delusional and none of them are their stated gender") contradicts the motte ("some trans people with a specific presentation – primarily adolescent girls – are not actually their stated gender") because the latter presupposes that some trans people are, in fact, their stated gender. If you believe all trans people are delusional, why do you care about the specific etiology of the transness of a specific subgroup of trans people? The treatment, whichever you prefer, should be the same.
I consider myself pro-trans, but I believe ROGD/social contagion may well be a real thing. If you agree about the possibility of social contagion, you should try to minimize the attention trans people receive, yet anti-trans activists have been the main publicists of transness for about a decade now – trans people really entered the mainstream with the North Carolina "bathroom bill". It used to be that you would only find information about transness if you went looking for it because you were questioning your gender, but now that trans people are everywhere (thanks to anti-trans activists), you get impressionable young people who were not predisposed to questioning their gender hearing about it and joining in for the standard reasons impressionable young people join trends. (Cf. media coverage of school shootings encouraging more school shootings – a common argument among anti-gun-control people.)
Not according to Google Trends. The bathroom bill passed in March 2016. In the US, searches for "Transsexual" peaked in January 2006, searches for "Transgender" peaked in February and September 2025, and searches for "transgender" peaked in July 2015 and May 2016. Searches for "Caitlyn Jenner" and "Laverne Cox" both peaked in June 2015 (Jenner publicly came out in April 2015). Searches for "I am Jazz" and "Jazz Jennings" peaked in July 2015. The idea that people only started talking about transgender issues because of anti-trans activism is baseless.
I also feel compelled to quote from the most popular thing I've ever written:
This is a silly complaint in many ways.
1: It's easy to make up as many unofficial days as you want.
For example I just asked AI real quick about June and got
Men's Health Month, Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month, PTSD Awareness Month, Migraine and Headache Awareness Month, Scleroderma Awareness Month, National Safety Month, Immigrant Heritage Month, Caribbean American Heritage Month, Black Music Month, Great Outdoors Month, Food-Related Months, National Dairy Month, National Candy Month, National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, Turkey Lovers Month, Iced Tea Month, National Camping Month, National Rivers Month, Rose Month, National Homeownership Month, National Employee Wellness Month, Effective Communications Month, Fight the Filthy Fly Month, Accordion Awareness Month, Candy Month, Zoo and Aquarium Month
And that's just a small portion. Most of those things are not actually observed in any meaningful way. November is not seen as "trans awareness month", I've never seen any LGBT community talking about that ever. In fact I asked what type of month November is considered and it gave me the five of Native American Heritage Month, Veterans and Military Families Month, National Family Caregivers Month, National Adoption Month, and Movember so presumably those, which I've never heard of once, are more prominent.
And it's not even on the national calendar day site. so seemingly something like National Tar Syndrome Awareness Month is still more cared about than "trans awareness month" is.
2: By the same standards, black related days have been drastically undercounted. Such as June also being Black Music Month! Or August as Black Business Month. And speaking of November, it's also National Black Catholic History Month. And don't forget about National Black Family Day or Black Women's Equal Pay Day or whatever else.
Give me a break. That's not true.
You've been posting a constant stream of things that seem to defend libertarianism but which are either extreme, subtly wrong, or both, which is a classic trolling technique that is the equivalent of being a fed: post this material in the hope that you can provoke some of your enemies into agreeing with or defending the claims (if extreme) or into believing them (if wrong).
[Edit: Or to provoke your enemies into giving broader than necessary refutations of the things you say, so as to get them to attack libertarianism.]
Unfortunately the moderators don't seem to understand this, even though it violates the rule "speak plainly".
Heaven forfend!
Imagine somebody having an extreme viewpoint on the Motte.
Or someone being subtly wrong on the Motte.
Come on, people having extreme views and being wrong on the Motte is something restricted to days that end in Y. Being extreme and wrong describes almost all of the Motte. The Motte might productively be defined as a place where you can be extreme and wrong.
The meta complaints about me are really interesting like that. Does someone really lack such self awareness that they don't recognize themotte, a pretty radical spinoff of an already pretty out there and eccentric group (rationalists) would be made up of a bunch of people with wildly different views from general society?
Well yeah probably, this place is bound to be autism central, such deficiency is expected to some degree. But it's like that meme of "autistic person meeting someone else slightly more autistic", like woah.
But I also think such meta complaints are used to mask a lack of meaningful response to the actual comment.
Is there a good criteria in which something like Black Music Month, which has a wikipedia page and congressional approval should not be counted as observed when comparing African American related holidays to trans holidays, but under which trans awareness month should be? Perhaps, I can't think of any but there might be I suppose.
There's been no answer regarding the actual meat of my argument there. Maybe he has an answer and just won't give it, maybe he has a convincing criteria that blows mine out of the water. Where was it?
This behavior is not uncommon for the site. For example consider this discussion where instead of providing any evidentiary meat to chew on to back up the claims that police had charged a protestor for assault when they were just defending themselves (like a Fox News article about it, or the charging documents, or something other than "random x user says so"), commentors get into a meta discussion. Where is it? Where's the meat? No one wants to provide any.
I even said this in a comment then
Of the 10 people who saw this and down voted, none of them had any interest in providing actual evidence for the claims presented. Same with the original comment asking for any actual piece of evidence, no one seemed to think that providing proof was a reasonable part of discussion?
It's all meta hate, no substance.
I suppose it's easier to identify as an individualist, a heretic, a brave defier of social orthodoxies, etc., than it is to actually tolerate individualism or defiance when they arise. Just as the Motte is radical compared to wider society, you're radical compared to the Motte. You have a minority, unpopular position, sure, but I don't think your arguments for it are noticeably worse or more bad-faith than the modal Motte post on other subjects.
My point isn't "magicalkittycat is great". People can disagree on that, like you, dislike you, whatever. That's up to them. It's that I think you are not below the average level of discourse quality on this website, irrespective of one's position.
For what it's worth, on this particular issue, I think FtttG's Substack post is generally correct in its conclusion, and the comparison between Freddie's take on trans and Freddie's take on DID is damning. There clearly is room for good-faith hesitation, skepticism, or even opposition to various policies that trans advocates have, demonstrably, asked for. That said, I also agree that the Wesley Yang list of calendar days is a weak argument. There are specious days of awareness for pretty much everything, because there are no rules about who can declare them, and no governing authorities recognising them. The only month-long events I'd heard of in November are Movember, NaNoWriMo, and, er, the one about masturbation, but Wikipedia has a huge list of observances, most of which are obviously trivial. Consider the likes of No Music Day, which appears to just be one guy grinding an axe.
The point FtttG is making overall is, I think, correct, in that it's a bit rich to accuse conservatives of politicising the transgender issue or drawing attention to it. "You brought it up!" is the correct response for conservatives to make, perhaps with a side order of, "If it's so trivial and unimportant, why don't you just give in?" But the proliferation of completely vacuous days of remembrance or awareness days that nobody has ever heard of or cares about is indeed a phenomenon. The argument survives that - Pride Month, which is observed and recognised, is sufficient for FtttG's point - but I acknowledge your nitpick is valid.
One important question, radical to who. The anti western democracy beliefs of a few users here is wildly radical even compared to some of the farthest right corners of mainstream Trump supporters (I live in a Trump >+20 county in NC, I've talked to plenty of normie republicans and I don't think any of them are as wildly anti western democracy as some of the posts here) but might look milquetoast in China or Russia.
My strong belief in free trade is the mainstream opinion of economists and one of the dominant beliefs of the Republican party for like >50 years, and yet when put up to the current ruling politicians as a gauge, I am now radical because the winds have shifted with our pro tariff president. Or actually, I would have been except tariffs are one of Trump's least popular policies and most Americans still seem to be rather pro free trade. So which belief is radical there? Depends on who we use as a baseline, the current president or the American people?
The conclusion could be overall correct, I didn't comment on that. I specifically went for the clearly bad logic regarding calender days, because that is clearly bad logic.
The criteria chosen for which days or months get included is terrible. It was terrible enough that if it wasn't for "the writer was just being too lazy or stupid to consider if there was other observed days for African Americans that meet the level we use for trans related ones" being a valid explanation, I would assume it was in purposeful bad faith.
By 'radical' I meant 'in the local minority'.
On the scale of the Motte, you are a minority. On the scale of the whole United States, most Motte consensus views are unpopular minority views. On the scale of the whole world, most American consensus views are unpopular minority views.
In a large essay, I do nitpick things, but in general I think a good essay-writer will try to provide multiple justifications for their important points, so if one or two of those justifications are a bit weaker, I try to be generous. The basic point "trans issues are not a confection of the right" is correct, and the supporting evidence "look at the way that left-wing organisations and actors have tried to push public awareness and discussion of trans issues" is correct, and "organised celebrations like Pride Month are an example of this" is also correct. I do think that FtttG and Wesley Yang overstep themselves a little by citing every claimed day or month, but that's not the kind of overstep that makes me dismiss them entirely. I don't think that's unreasonably gullible or charitable of me?
It's, I suppose, a type of gotcha. I think the gotcha is true, but I also think the claim can easily survive it. FtttG could very easily concede the point that not all those days are meaningfully celebrated without it harming his overall argument.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link